


Unsuffer Me

by shaenie



Series: Unsuffer Me [1]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bondage, Breathplay, M/M, other kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-01
Updated: 2010-09-24
Packaged: 2017-10-12 03:58:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 20,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/120504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shaenie/pseuds/shaenie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This fic was written for <a href="http://tittakv.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://tittakv.livejournal.com/"><strong>tittakv</strong></a> as a result of her winning a <a href="http://www.sweet-charity.net/">Sweet Charity</a> auction benefiting RAINN. She was fabulously awesome to write for. This will probably end up being more than a one shot, as I've already got more story in my head, but I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get it all done, and didn't want to make her wait.</p>
    </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for [](http://tittakv.livejournal.com/profile)[**tittakv**](http://tittakv.livejournal.com/) as a result of her winning a [Sweet Charity](http://www.sweet-charity.net/) auction benefiting RAINN. She was fabulously awesome to write for. This will probably end up being more than a one shot, as I've already got more story in my head, but I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get it all done, and didn't want to make her wait.

Fina, the Nadrai's headwoman, told John and Rodney about the invitation over _bierling tea_ and crumbly little cakes that tasted like the best, most buttery pound cake in the universe, only without that heavy, almost greasy texture that the best pound cakes always had. Rodney had one cup of tea and inhaled all six of the cakes on his plate in under three minutes, while Fina beamed at him maternally. John had three cups of tea and a cake with each, and let Rodney steal the other three off of his plate without commenting. They'd been trading with the Nadrai for nearly two years, and Keller had come personally to their village to minister to the headwoman's family when Michael's plague had been at its worst.

They weren't just allies, but friends. John knew the names of Fina's grandchildren, and had spent six days last summer helping with the _yantil_ harvest along with half the marines.

Atlantis had hundreds of trading partners and dozens of allies, but there were only a handful of cultures that had their own IDCs in case of cullings, that had earned the right to call on Dr. McKay when their minister of science had a breakthrough on hydro-electric energy and needed Rodney to check his equations at four in the morning, Atlantis time.

John liked them, Rodney trusted them, and when Fina told them that the Yel-Ganta would like to open trade negotiations with the City of the Ancestors, they listened with interest. The Nadrai had traded with the Yel-Ganta since the time of Fina's great-grandfather, and had always found them to be reliable trading partners and generous hosts. Their primary trade resource, however, had always been salt, which the Nadrai had no need for any longer, since trading with Atlantis for salt was so much more economically feasible. Fina felt the Yel-Ganta hoped to replace the resources they were no longer getting from the Nadrai by finding something to trade with Atlantis. The Yel-Ganta also mined several kinds of metal and raised herdbeasts, she told them. These were not things the Nadrai needed, but perhaps Atlantis had need of them?

John got the feeling that Fina felt a little guilty about not needing anything from the Yel-Ganta anymore, and was hoping to find a way to make up for whatever deficit that created in the Yel-Ganta's economy.

Since Atlantis was always looking for both trading partners and allies, John didn't mind.

Fina gave them the gate address and assured them that she'd be happy to contact the Yel-Ganta and inquire about a meeting.

Back on Atlantis, Carter listened to their report, called Teyla in to advise (nursing a fussy Torren while John and Rodney made an effort not to look), and approved the meeting within a day.

According to Teyla, the Athosians had occasionally traded with the Yel-Ganta before the exodus to New Lantea, and though they had not been among the several cultures that they had been friendly with, they had always proved themselves to be fair and honest traders.

According to Ronon, the Yel-Ganta frequently attended Sateda's _Fair Days_ twice a year, which was a sort of open-market bazaar that Sateda had been famous for hosting. Ronon had once had a knife he'd bought from a Yel-Ganta trader.

"Held an edge," he told Carter when she asked what he'd thought of them.

A couple of days later, Fina had contacted them with details of the meeting, and they'd slotted the Yel-Ganta in between the inevitable uninhabited-world-with-impossible-to-decipher-in-any-helpful-fashion-mention-in-the-Ancient-database mission, and the equally inevitable meet-with-the-Genii-under-Ladon's-command-in-a-neutral-location mission. If anyone had asked John, he'd have told them that the visit with the Yel-Ganta was the most likely of the three to come off without a hitch.

***

What he actually remembered of the mission was this: Gearing up, meeting up in the Gateroom, the ceremonial kissing of Torren on his mostly-bald head (It had started on Teyla's first mission after Torren was born, when he'd been a couple of months old and asleep or eating every time John saw him; Teyla had handed Torren over to his nurse and dropped a kiss on his forehead. It all seemed perfectly above-board until Ronon had bent down and smooched the baby's head with no apparent self-consciousness at all. Then both of them had turned to stare at John, who had stared back stupidly until Teyla said: "It is customary," in a voice that promised a great deal of pain and suffering would be visited on the heads of anyone heathenish enough not to conform to custom. So John had kissed Torren's baby-soft forehead, and joined in with Teyla and Ronon in the glaring expectantly at Rodney until Rodney had capitulated with a sigh. Now they did it before every mission. It was weird how quickly it had become normal), watching the wormhole engage while ignoring Rodney's bitching about missing fried chickenish Friday in the mess, and stepping through the wormhole.

After that, a big black nothing, punctuated very briefly by the awareness of being carried and/or dragged more than once.

The only reason he knew they'd been taken through the Stargate was because when he woke up, wearing nothing but his BDU pants (even his boots were missing), bound and gagged and propped up against the side of what sure the hell looked unpleasantly like a gigantic stone altar, he could clearly see a purplish moon looming ominously outside one of the glassless windows of the long, low building they were in.

Yel-Ganta, the pre-mission briefing had imparted, had no moon at all, but rather a sort of spectacular comet-like ball of orbiting debris that might have at one time _been_ a moon.

The building itself was made out of some pale, leprous looking stone that glistened a little in the purplish moonlight, as though wet. There was a metal door in the wall John was facing, and a dark, shadowy pile of things that he couldn't really see, but he suspected was all their stuff anyway. It was this weird thing about the Pegasus galaxy. People would shoot at you, kidnap you, try to force you to marry their daughters, sell you to the Wraith, or even try and eat you, but they hardly ever tried to steal your stuff.

Someday John would write a book.

There were no guards around as far as John could see, or hear, when he closed his eyes and tried to listen for movement.

He shifted, and immediately became aware that both of his hands were numb, and there was a bolt of fiery pain in his right hip, which he'd been lying on for who knew how long. He wriggled around until he could get his bound hands on the floor, and levered himself into a slightly more ergonomic position. His hip throbbed a protest, and John ignored it.

Other than hip and hands, he didn't seem to be hurt.

Rodney was slumped against the altar beside him, eyes still closed, hands bound behind him like John's, also wearing nothing but his pants. His face was slack, unconscious, but John could hear him breathing in the cavernous silence of the otherwise empty room. If he'd been awake, his muffled squawking would have drawn the attention of whatever guards might be lurking outside, so John figured it was for the best.

Ronon and Teyla were nowhere to be seen, which didn't mean they weren't around somewhere. Or close by, at least.

John couldn't think of a reason for the Yel-Ganta to split up the team, at any rate. Then again, he had no idea why the Yel-Ganta had chosen to kidnap them and dump them on another planet either, so it was possible.

He went to work trying to figure out whether or not there was any possibility of wriggling his way out of the ropes.

He'd been at it for a while, fifteen minutes at least, when he realized he couldn't hear the steady sound of Rodney's breathing anymore. He panicked briefly while he flailed into a semi-upright position, and saw that Rodney was awake and watching him. His eyes were bright and alert, and he didn't look like he was about to panic, though the gag completely covered the lower half of Rodney's face, so it was possible he could be wrong about that. He made an inquiring noise behind his own gag, and received a reassuring grumble in response, so he went back to working at the ropes around his wrists, which he was pretty sure were looser than they had been.

It took him another half an hour to get one wrist free, and by that time he was bleeding and furious and exhausted and bruised and cold from straining energetically all over the chilly marble-like floor. He was also covered in rope burns which could have been mostly avoided -- or the ones across his chest at least -- if the Yel-Ganta had had the common decency to at least leave him his t-shirt. If there _were_ any guards lurking outside, John was looking forward to kicking their asses. He groaned as he dragged his hands around to the front of his body, shrugging the rope around his chest and biceps upward so he could use his arms. It proved difficult with no feeling and very little voluntary movement in his hands, but he eventually pawed the musty-smelling rag away from his face and spat the wadded up ball of even mustier-tasting cloth out of his mouth. He immediately started coughing, trying to muffle it as much as he could into the crook his arm until he worked his way over to the pile of what was indeed their stuff, and dug around until he located a canteen.

He swigged a mouthful of water to swish around and then spit onto the floor, and then several more that he swallowed gratefully. He had no idea how long they'd been out, but he was thirsty enough for it to have been a while. Jesus, Rodney had to be ready to keel over.

He capped the canteen and dug through the pile again until he came up with a life-signs detector and his knife. He tried to get a solid enough grip on the knife to cut away the ropes at his ankles and knees, but about halfway through the feeling started coming back in his hands and it felt like they were fucking on _fire_. They were shaking so badly he had no choice but to stop and wait for it to pass, gritting his teeth against the pain. He thought the life-signs detector on while he tried to get control of his appendages, but a cursory examination showed no little dots aside from his own and Rodney's. Once his hands steadied and regained at least a little feeling, he cut the rest of his ropes off and wobbled experimentally to his feet.

It took him a few seconds to catch his balance, and his hip was seriously pissed off, but he seemed otherwise okay. He dug around in the pile until he found his P-90 -- pausing just long enough to check the clip -- and slung it over his shoulder, wincing a little as the strap rubbed against the rope burns on his back. Rodney made a quiet noise, and John waved him silent while he made a slow, complete circuit of the building, staying low beneath the windows, eyes on the life-signs detector.

Nothing at all. The life-signs detector was reliable up to a mile at its longest range, and as far as John could tell, they were completely alone. He straightened to take a look out the window, but there wasn't anything to see. No other buildings, no landmarks, no trees as far as he could tell, though it was pretty dark.

He pawed through their stuff one more time, eventually coming up with a headset. "Ronon, Teyla, this is Sheppard. Report." He waited, counting out a full fifteen seconds, using the time to close the distance to Rodney. He dumped everything but the knife on top of the altar and dropped to one knee beside Rodney before he let himself try again. "Teyla, Ronon, do you read me?"

"Colonel?" Teyla's voice sounded tinny and distant, but was reassuringly calm and cool.

"Thank God," John said, and grinned at Rodney. "You two all right?"

"Yes, Colonel. We are still working free of some of our bonds, but we are otherwise quite unharmed. Where are you?"

John looked around, but there wasn't anything he'd missed lying around that might give him more information as to their present whereabouts. "No idea," he told her. "A building of some kind, with an altar. You guys?"

"The same," Teyla said grimly. "Ronon believes he has been to this planet before. He believes he can find the Stargate."

John grinned. "That's the best news I've heard all day. I've still got to cut McKay loose, see if he can get an energy reading on the 'gate. We'll meet you there. Stay in contact."

"Yes, John," she agreed. "We will be in touch."

Rodney was still watching him, unnaturally calm and still, considering the circumstances. He was leaning, tipped slightly to the left, legs folded half underneath him. He was bound much as John had been, hands behind him, upper arms bound to his sides by way of several loops of rope around his chest, another couple of loops around his thighs and ankles. He was leaning against the altar behind him, eyes fixed intently on John's face. "Hey, buddy," he said. Rodney's eyelids fluttered closed for a moment. John waited until he opened them again before holding up the knife. "You're okay," he said, low and soothing as Rodney's gaze narrowed on the blade. He wedged his fingers under the cloth of the gag to get it away from his skin, and slid the knife carefully underneath before he angled it through the material. Rodney was utterly still until John put the knife down, and then he turned his head and spat the wad of cloth onto the floor.

"Drink," Rodney croaked, and John snagged the canteen from on top of the altar and held it to his lips so he could gulp greedily, even though half of it spilled down Rodney's chin.

"Okay?" John asked once he'd set the canteen aside. "Let me get your hands."

Rodney gave him an odd look, grave and glittery-eyed, and leaned forward just enough to slide his cool, wet lips along John's.

John started a little -- they didn't do this offworld -- but then mentally shrugged. There wasn't anyone here, and even though they'd been kidnapped _again_ , everyone was okay; what could it hurt? Besides, it was weirdly comforting to lick at Rodney's lips, which opened immediately to his tongue. It made something loosen and settle in John's chest to cradle the back of Rodney's head in the palm of one hand so he didn't bump against the stone altar behind him when the kiss deepened. When John pulled back, Rodney was panting harshly, lips open and wet and entirely too tempting.

He became aware of the feel of Rodney shivering beneath John's hand on his shoulder. "Hey," John said, abruptly concerned. "Hey, buddy, settle down. It's okay. You're okay."

Rodney let his head tip back, the full weight of it resting warmly against John's palm, and made a sound that was simultaneously agonized and amused. His Adam's apple bobbed convulsively beneath the skin of his throat. Concern deepened into alarm.

"Hey," he said again, maybe a little sharply. "Let me get your hands." Rodney looked just a little too close to panic for his taste, though why _now_ , when he'd seemed fine before, was a mystery. Regardless, he figured Rodney would calm down once he wasn't tied up. But when John shifted his hand from the back of Rodney's head to between Rodney's shoulder blades to pull him forward far enough that John could get his hands between his back and the stone of the altar, Rodney balked, pressing back hard enough to pin John's hand between Rodney's warm back and cold stone. "Hey!" John said again. He felt the scratchy brush of Rodney's stubbled chin against his throat less than a second before Rodney's teeth nipped at the hinge of John's jaw, hard. "Jesus, McKay," John yelped, pulling back as far as he could with his hand still pinned behind Rodney. "What the hell? We haven't been here long enough for you to go cannibal!"

Rodney let out another of those harsh, choked sounds of not-really-amusement. His eyes were fever-bright, manic, and even in the dim light of the little purple moon John could see the hectic color staining his cheeks. His bottom lip was shiny-wet and trembling.

John's alarm ratcheted up another notch, and he jerked his hand out from behind Rodney, leaving the first couple of layers of skin over his knuckles on the stone. He caught Rodney's shoulders in both hands and looked at him. Rodney was shivering still, almost shuddering under John's hands. "You're okay, Rodney," John insisted, baffled and unnerved. "Jesus, calm down. You're okay."

"John," Rodney said, low and hoarse, and Rodney's laugh was still sharp and almost painful sounding, but was at least marginally less freaky than the last one. John tightened his hands on Rodney's biceps to steady himself, or maybe to steady Rodney; he wasn't sure. Rodney sighed, eyelids fluttering. "I'm not okay," he whispered.

Then he did something that John was sure he'd remember in minute detail for the rest of his life.

He relaxed, all at once, tension bleeding out of his limbs in a rush, the bunched muscles of his biceps going lax and easy under John's hands. He melted bonelessly against the stone behind him, head tipped back at an angle against the top corner of the altar, lips slick and wet and open, eyes closed, letting John's hands on his arms keep him upright, and he moved, no, he _writhed_ gently, full-body, a sort of sinuous not-resistance against the ropes that bound his upper arms to his chest, his thighs together, John's hands.

John couldn't think how to describe it, even inside his own head, but it was unmistakable, it was. God, it was _insane_ , and John's mouth was suddenly dry, his hands were shaking, and his cock, already semi-alert just from kissing Rodney, was abruptly and fiercely erect. "Jesus, Rodney?" he heard himself say, almost _groan_ , though it sounded impossibly distant through the rushing white-noise echoing around in the interior of his skull. It sounded like a question, but John honestly had no idea if that's what it was, or what the question could even be.

Rodney's eyes opened slowly, and the light wasn't the best, but his eyes looked way too dark, and each of them held the tiny, purplish reflection of the moon.

A sharp and unpleasant twist of panic fought its way past the hot, thick lust pooling in John's belly. "Your hands," he managed, because his own hands had hurt like hell when he'd finally got them free, still hurt in that achy-dry way that prolonged lack-of-mobility could cause. "Rodney-" He cut himself off, because his voice didn't sound right, didn't even sound like it was _his_. Too much uncertainty, even an edge of fear, and it was just not in him to show that to people if he could help it.

"Five minutes," Rodney rasped out, and licked his lips in such a way that somehow communicated nothing like _gee, I've been gagged for hours and I'm fucking parched_ , and everything like _want, I want, give me, yes._ His voice was thready and a little slurred, very unlike his usual crisp consonants and short vowels. "Five minutes won't matter."

And that probably would've done it all by itself if the ache in his nuts and the slick-sharp clench in the pit of his belly were any indicator, but Rodney didn't stop there. He said, or actually just sort of _breathed,_ "John, yes, _John_ ," and twisted beneath his hands for a few seconds in a way that _had_ to be uncomfortable, but left Rodney panting and looking, god, just unbelievably sexed-up.

"This is-" John said, but he was scrambling to his feet even as he said it, because the hot pulse in his groin had gone sharp and dark, and traveled straight up his spinal column and obliterated every single intelligent objection in his head. "This is insane." But he used his grip on Rodney's biceps to haul him up to his knees and brace him against the stone behind him; Rodney shuffled inelegantly to help get his knees beneath him, panting and almost frighteningly eager. When John straightened, Rodney shoved his face into John's crotch, teeth scraping at the thick cloth and along the shaft of John's aching cock beneath it.

They both made noises John had never heard before, had never even _thought_ of before, noises that snarled desperation and helplessness and lust into a knot of sound that almost hurt to hear. "This is a bad idea," John groaned, but Rodney had his mouth on him, and John's still-tingling hands jerked his fly open anyway. As soon as John had his cock in his hand, Rodney went still, eerily calm, like he hadn't just been trying to get at it through John's pants four seconds previous. He went still, and let out a soft sighing moan that had John tightening his hand around the base of his cock instinctively. "Rodney," he growled, but then bit down on the rest, because Jesus, Jesus, what was _wrong_ with him, and suddenly he wasn't sure, again, that he could even do this, _like_ this.

Rodney's gaze flicked up to his face for just a moment, but John wasn't convinced Rodney was actually seeing him at all. His face was all heat and hunger, and for a second he didn't even _look_ like Rodney. Then his gaze dropped back to John's cock, and he made that same little sigh-moan that John hadn't even known he was capable of before thirty seconds ago in spite of the fact that they'd been sleeping together for months now. Except this time John was actually listening, and it wasn't just a soft exhalation of air and sound, it was his name, just stretched and breathless and so quiet it was nearly unrecognizable, and he whispered, "Okay, you're okay, Rodney," and slid his free hand down and around the back of Rodney's neck, thumb cocked just beneath the hinge of his jaw to tip his head back, like, God, like he knew just exactly what was going on, and Rodney shuddered and swayed forward obligingly until his wet lower lip grazed the head of John's cock.

And just like that he was pressing in, the underside of the entire length of the shaft of his cock sliding along the wet heat of Rodney's tongue, and for a few seconds that was all it was, Rodney completely still and just, just open, willing mouth and fluttering eyelashes, and it was so good that John was already gasping, each breath wrenching its way out of his chest like it was catching on every molecule between lungs and lips.

Then Rodney made a high, reedy noise and swayed backward until his shoulders hit the upper edge of the altar, and John shifted without thinking, slid far enough forward to stay with him, bracing himself on the altar with one hand, aware of the corner of the top edge of the altar gouging uncomfortably into the back of the hand curled around the base of Rodney's skull, but absolutely not giving a shit. As soon as Rodney's shoulders hit the stone his mouth went tightly urgent around John's cock, his tongue curled slick and hot just behind the head, and if Rodney didn't object to being trapped between the cold stone of the altar and the hard muscle of John's thighs then John certainly wasn't going to.

There was only one way for this to go in this position, and John flexed his thighs and went up to his toes to make the angle work and decided to think about why it was happening at all later. Much later.

He rocked his hips forward once, twice, shallow enough to get a feel for it and, "Yeah," he hissed, "Yes, Rodney," because it was, this was the hottest fucking thing he could think of, Rodney's head tipped back and his eyes closed just, letting John push in, and John almost couldn't believe it was even happening considering that for months and months now they've fucked, _Rodney's_ fucked the same goddamned way he does everything else, bossy and brilliant and arrogant and totally willing to demand John do this, do it like that, do it harder, do it _now_.

"God," he whispered, thick and guttural, and forced himself to keep his thrusts short and shallow. He still wasn't going to last, couldn't possibly last, but he was far less worried about that than about not hurting Rodney, who was just, God, just taking it, tongue working, lips tight, but not otherwise moving at all. And he was okay, keeping himself in check, until Rodney whined urgently, twisting against John's thighs the same way he'd twisted against the ropes before, not trying to get out of them, not struggling, but like he needed to know that they were _there_ , and John was, okay, he was _not_ stupid, but the understanding that Rodney had a thing for being tied up was a hell of a lot more fucking visceral when he was whining around John's cock and writhing against his thighs.

John's hips snapped out of his control, one two three, and there were several seconds of white white pleasure behind his eyes and south of his navel and blood rushing like the ocean in his ears and tingling in the tips of his fingers, the sheer crushing force of it so good, so _close_ that even when he could hear the choked and desperate and infinitely fucking hot sounds Rodney was making he couldn't process them as anything but maddening pleasure, had to actually look down at him, look and see the tip of Rodney's nose tucked up against John's belly, his clenched eyes, see the purple moonlight gleam on wet trails that ran horizontally across the tops of his cheeks and temples where they disappeared into his hair, he had to see, and even then it took him a second to _get_ that Rodney couldn't fucking _breathe._

John jerked back, all the way back and out, and probably would have kept moving back until he hit the big metal door thirty feet behind them, chest tight and hot and heavy with horror, Jesus, except Rodney rasped, " _Yes_ ," and it was so fierce and desperate that John froze long enough for Rodney to whisper, hoarse and hot and less than an inch from John's cock, "yes, like that, John, yes." John felt himself react, felt it and couldn't stop it if he wanted to, horror forgotten in a bright rush of want, and Rodney opened his mouth and tipped his head forward to slide all the way back down John's cock, whining again, thick chest pressed tight against the fronts of John's thighs. John's hips twitched forward, utterly outside his control, and Rodney made a soft, strangled sound, and the muscles of his neck went loose in the palm of John's hand again, head tipping back to rest against the stone.

John deliberately didn't move forward with him this time. He let his cock slide out of Rodney's mouth as his head tipped back, an excruciatingly slick shift of friction that stopped when the back of Rodney's head came to rest against the stone behind it. Rodney's tongue curled, stroked lazily along the dip just under the head of John's cock, slow and sweet. The air prickled at the wet skin, cool and unpleasant after the wet heat of Rodney's mouth, and John couldn't remember ever wanting anything as badly as he wanted this.

But he had to be sure.

"Rodney," he said, and didn't have any idea what to think about how his voice sounded, but Rodney opened his eyes, which was what John wanted. Rodney's eyes were dark and glassy; he hadn't said please or anything like that, hadn't said anything he wouldn't have said any of the previous times he'd had John's cock in his mouth, but this was nothing like any of those times. John could _see_ it in his eyes, spoken or not. He'd never done anything quite like this, and he needed to be sure. But he didn't see anything that even came close to fear, whatever else was there. He tightened his fingers around the back of Rodney's neck, replaced the ball of his thumb at the hinge of Rodney's jaw. "Rodney," he said again, and Rodney twisted hard against him, so that John had to push back to stay where he was, and what he really wanted to do was just ask if he was sure, wanted to hear Rodney _say_ it. Instead, he said, "I'm going to fuck your mouth," and Rodney sucked in a sharp breath through his nose, nostrils flaring, eyes going wide. John could feel him shuddering against his thighs.

Then, like someone had flipped a switch -- like _John_ had flipped a switch -- he went quiet and loose again, the full weight of his head suddenly pressing the back of John's hand harder into the edge of the top of the altar. His eyes fluttered closed and John had to steel himself against shoving in just from how it looked, mouth wrapped around John's cock, eyes closed, just the way it felt to have Rodney twisting gently against the ropes, pinned between the altar and John's thighs.

Jesus, that was just.

 _Okay,_ he thought, _okay,_ and pushed in gently, shifted himself to a better angle, pushed again and tipped Rodney's chin up with the edge of his thumb, feeling it sink into the soft skin of Rodney's throat a little, something bright and hard and hot clawing at the base of his spine at the sound Rodney made in response, a high, harsh whine. "Shh," John whispered, "you're okay," and didn't stop, maybe couldn't stop, the drag of Rodney's tongue and the tight ring of his lips so good, so good, and then perfect, perfect, so he tugged his hand away from the side of Rodney's jaw and slid it down to cup the underside instead, to hold him there, God, and he hoped, he fucking hoped, "Yeah, right there, just like that," he hissed, and Rodney moaned, low and desperate and needy, and that was it.

He couldn't take any more, there was a limit to the amount of sheer, mind-numbing lust that John Sheppard was capable of maintaining, and Rodney fucking McKay _moaning around his cock_ while John held his face how he wanted it and _fucked his mouth_ was it.

He didn't try to stop his hips from stuttering forward, and didn't pull back at the first helpless, strangled sound Rodney made around his cock, just, he just, God, pushed a little deeper, deep enough to feel the fluttery constriction of what had to be Rodney's throat working around the head of his cock, and growled, "It won't take long." Rodney moaned and choked and John could feel him arching hard against his thighs and the ropes, shuddering and making sounds that would be terrible and frightening if John couldn't _feel_ them around his cock, if he couldn't hear the high, needy whine buried within them, if he hadn't been unequivocally fucking invited to make Rodney make them.

"God, Rodney," he snarled, and it was utterly beyond his ability to stop, all he could do was tell himself that his balance was precarious enough that if Rodney really needed to he could use the bulk of his upper body to throw John off, and even that thought only lasted about a second and a half before he was just fucking Rodney's mouth with long, deep thrusts, groaning at the feel of Rodney's tight throat around him, the wet heat and the low, desperate noises that he could feel along every nerve-ending, the twist and press of Rodney's chest against his thighs. Oh, and God, it was so good, better than anything had ever been, slick and perfect and so so wrong to want to hear Rodney choke, so wrong but so good, the feel of it, and he wasn't surprised at all when he came, he'd been expecting it from pretty much the second he'd started, but he was utterly unprepared for the way it completely unhinged him, the way he could hear himself hissing, "Yes, yes, yesyesyes," the unstoppable jerk and twist of his hips to get him where he needed to be, shove and hold with all that hot constriction around him and the noise he made, finally, somewhere between a scream and a sob.

He'd have just stood there forever, maybe slumped over the top of the altar and taken a nap, except for the fact that for the most part, he liked Rodney breathing. With some fairly notable exceptions, apparently. He forced himself to stay upright, to pull out at once, and Rodney immediately bent at the waist and started to cough.

John fumbled for the canteen and slumped to his knees beside Rodney, tugging him up against his side to support his weight. Rodney gulped water even more greedily than he had when the gag had come out, but when he was done he fell sideways against John without hesitation, taking deep, unsteady breaths and still shuddering so hard that John had to actually hold on to him to keep him upright. For three or four seconds, Rodney just leaned and shuddered and John didn't do a thing, so post-coitally dazed that he was practically comatose, wondering stupidly if it was possible to actually orgasm so hard that you burned something out in your brain.

Then Rodney was wriggling around desperately, jamming his mouth against his so hard that John reeled backward and had to catch himself with the heel of his palm against the floor. "Please, I, John," Rodney groaned, and John felt Rodney's hard-on grinding against the side of his thigh. _Oh,_ he thought, and some kind of lust-recoil twisted in John's nuts almost painfully. For a second he couldn't move, teeth clenched at the sharpness of it, and Rodney whimpered against John's shoulder and pushed with his hips, trying for leverage that was nearly impossible in the position they were in.

"Hey," he murmured, and his lips brushed against Rodney's temple, tasting salt that could be sweat or tears or both. "Wait, just-"

But it was obvious that Rodney couldn't wait, maybe didn't even hear him, which was enough to make John grateful that he _wasn't_ twenty years younger for a change, since the fact that he probably wasn't going to see another hard-on for at least a day meant he was clear-headed enough to see that there was no way this position was going to work. He twisted up to his knees again, getting the balls of his feet braced on the floor, and managed to manhandle Rodney around until he was facing John, straddling one thigh. Rodney keened, wordless and stuttery, when his own weight shoved his cock against the big muscle in John's thigh, and John pushed back and wrapped both arms around Rodney hard, imprisoning, because he got it, he got it, and Rodney shuddered and writhed without anything that even came close to any kind of rhythm, just harsh and frantic pressure that John controlled as much as he could by trapping Rodney against his chest until he finally went rigid and shouted something muffled and helpless into the crook of John's neck.

John gave him a minute to just be there, limp and panting and really fucking heavy but otherwise still, before he unlocked his arms from around Rodney's chest and maneuvered him up to his knees. Rodney blinked at him when John pulled away, his whole face soft and easy like John was pretty sure he'd never seen it before. "Okay?" John asked, and Rodney nodded slowly. "I'm going to get your hands," John told him, and Rodney nodded again.

His hands were trickier than the gag, bound more tightly, but Rodney didn't flinch even knowing that John was behind him with a knife. He took his time on the ropes around Rodney's wrists; those around his chest, thighs and ankles went more quickly. Rodney didn't move throughout the proceedings except to drag his hands around so that they were resting, palms up, against his thighs. He didn't pull away when John settled down in front of him with his legs crossed Indian style and picked up one of his hands gently. It was deeply red, almost purple, and his wrists were mottled with bruises, wrapped around with indentations so deep that John could pick out the texture of the rope bitten into Rodney's skin. He bit down on the urge to say something about it, but seeing it made his stomach hurt abruptly, like he'd swallowed ice-cold shards of glass.

Neither of them said anything for two minutes or so, and then Rodney hissed, fingers spasming in John's grasp. "Feeling's coming back," he muttered when John looked a question at him. His voice sounded shredded, hoarse and a little pained, and John was pretty sure he was completely fucked at this point, since even as he felt guilty as shit and a little horrified by the way it sounded, there was a bright, sharp twinge in the pit of his belly that didn't mind it a bit. He made himself give Rodney a long look, and Rodney didn't avoid it.

John had seen Rodney's face projecting just about every emotion John could think of, including embarrassment and shame, but there was no trace of either of those things there now. He wasn't sure if he should be relieved or worried about that.

"I'm sorry," Rodney said, low and apparently sincere, and so fucking weird that John had no real idea how to respond to it, and found himself grateful when Rodney kept talking so that he didn't have to figure it out. "That was dangerous," he muttered, and looked down at his hands, both twitching ceaselessly now. "I shouldn't have put you in that position."

John found himself gently chafing at Rodney's wrist without having meant to do any such thing. "Yeah, well," he said. "I could have said no."

Rodney snorted, lifting his eyes back to John's face. "Like that was going to happen." And his mouth crooked up, faintly smug.

The relief was such a shock that John actually felt a little light-headed for a second. Then he smirked. "I do make it a point not to turn down a blowjob if I can help it."

Rodney rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm aware." But they continued to just sit there and look at each other. Rodney balled his hands into careful fists, and then splayed them open, fingers straight, wincing without comment. Eventually, Rodney said, "Are we going to." He made a very small flicking motion with two fingers of the hand John was still holding, so tiny that it was in itself mute testament to how much they had to hurt. John had never seen his hands more subdued. "Talk about this," he finished, not looking thrilled with the idea.

John opened his mouth and then bit down on his bottom lip when he realized what he was about to say was, _"Do you want to talk about it?"_ Which. No. Instead, he said, "Maybe we ought to back burner that until we get out of here."

Rodney shot him a look that was simultaneously knowing and transparently relieved. "Agreed." He looked down at his hands, and then back at John. "If you're done rubbing the rest of the skin off my wrist, Colonel Sadist?" he asked, but the curl of his lips took the edge off of it.

"Pretty much," John agreed, and stood up. Rodney was a little wobbly, but seemed okay once he got his feet under him.

It took them a while to sort out the pile of crap the Yel-Ganta had left, but there wasn't anything missing as far as they could tell, and by the time they'd finished Rodney was bitching about his tingling fingertips and aching back, and everything felt so bizarrely normal that John could almost not think about pinning Rodney's head against the stone with his hips and shoving his cock down his throat for a whole three or four seconds at a stretch. Except.

Rodney had one hand on the handle of the door (the other holding his datapad) when John caught his wrist again.

"Wait," he said, chest tight, and he didn't know how to do this, but was sure that it needed doing. "Wait a second, Rodney."

Rodney turned, brows drawn together in a frown that was more puzzled than annoyed, and John saw that his lips looked red and still a little swollen, almost chapped. He ignored the sudden urge to lean in and see how they felt under his lips and tongue. "What?" he demanded, corner of his mouth dipping downward in aggravation, and John mentally reversed his position on the matter and leaned in to kiss him. "Oh," Rodney said, and John discovered that Rodney's mouth tasted a little red, like a shallow scrape, a little raw.

Jesus.

"That was," he said, lips grazing against Rodney's until he forced himself to pull back and put a little distance between them. Rodney sighed when he pulled back, but he was smiling faintly again, and his eyes were clear and bright, everything that made him the smartest man in two galaxies in place behind them. "That was the hottest fucking thing that has ever happened to me," John admitted.

Rodney's eyes widened just a little, just enough surprise that John was glad he'd said it.

"I, um. I thought we weren't talking about this right now," he said, but the little smile on his lips had quirked upward another couple of degrees.

"Yeah," John said. "But." He shrugged one shoulder.

"Oh," Rodney said, and looked at the door, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot. He looked back a few seconds later. "Are we done?" he asked.

And he looked so flummoxed, head tipped hopefully in the direction of the door, cheeks visibly flushed even in the purple moonlight, that John couldn't help grinning.

"Yeah, we're done, McKay," he said, and clapped him gently on the shoulder. "Let's go find the 'gate."

"I have delicate skin," Rodney muttered, shoving John's hand away and rubbing absently at his shoulder, eyes fixed on his datapad and apparently unaware of the hilarity of saying something like that considering the last ten minutes. John bit his lip to keep from laughing out loud and yanked the door open.  



	2. Chapter 2

It started a month after Rodney broke it off with Katie Brown. Or she broke it off with him. John honestly didn't think that either of them knew for sure how that had gone down.

It had been shockingly not-shocking. He'd ended up in Rodney's quarters watching a movie and drinking Nadrain Ale, as he did more nights than not, post-Katie. After _Apocalypse Now_ , but before Rodney had even managed to get _V for Vendetta_ out of its case, John, pleasantly buzzed but nowhere near the point where he could blame it on the beer, said: _"I'm gay."_

Even now, he had no idea why it had been then. It could have been the beer, at least a little, could have been the way the light from the laptop screen had made Rodney look faintly blue and ivory in the dimness, could have been anything, really. It wasn't like he hadn't thought about it before, so he couldn't even rightly call it an impulse.

In his wildest dreams, however, he hadn't imagined Rodney's response, which was to snap the laptop abruptly closed with one hand, drop _V for Vendetta_ on the floor with the other, and take the one and a half steps necessary to close the distance between them and throw a leg over John's thighs, sinking down to straddle his lap without a trace of hesitation or self-consciousness. It had taken less time than it took John to blink twice, and he remembered thinking a little stupidly that in his head, even the best case scenario had required at least four more conversational exchanges between the confession and the straddling. He'd been amused that Rodney had extrapolated the why of that two word declaration in under three seconds, and just decided to skip the part where they discussed the implications.

John didn't mind; he wasn't big on discussion, and the amusement didn't hold a candle to the weird but undeniable sense of relief, like he'd been hurting in some distant and indescribable way, and suddenly wasn't anymore. Hell, maybe he had been.

Rodney didn't even kiss him; not then.

He just shoved his face into John's neck and sighed, and that was it.

Several hours post-declaration, with Rodney passed out with his cheek smashed into John's shoulder and one hand curled warmly around John's wrist, John was sticky and exhausted and sore in several unusual places, and also almost obscenely comfortable, even if most of his left leg was hanging off the bed. He had no goddamned idea why he had waited so long.

After that, they were sleeping together. Maybe dating, though John didn't feel any differently about Rodney than he had before, and nothing changed aside from the regular exchange of bodily fluids and occasionally waking up in a bed that wasn't his own.

 

***

Yel-Ganta wasn't the first invitation via one of their regular trading partners that Atlantis had accepted, but John thought it would probably be the last. The really depressing truth was, they spent a lot of time on Atlantis closing the barn door after the horses had already escaped.

The big question, aside from how not to let it happen again, obviously, was a resounding: What the hell was that?

Atlantis hadn't had any prior contact with the Yel-Ganta, and nobody could come up with a single reason for them to snatch SGA-1. Add that to the fact that they hadn't made any kind of demands whatsoever, and had dumped them on an abandoned planet for no apparent reason, and it just didn't make any sense. Even if they'd succeeded in whatever it was they were trying to do, the Yel-Ganta had to know that there would be repercussions. The rest of Atlantis would have come after them; a rescue team had already been assembled when the four of them had stumbled through the 'gate, tired and hungry and baffled, but more or less unhurt.

Their low-profile days had been over for a while, after all. Practically the whole galaxy had heard about the obliteration of the Replicators, and during their frantic search for Teyla and Michael (may he rot in hell), it had quickly become obvious that most of the peoples they came in contact with understood that they could either help or stay the hell out of their way. John hadn't had the time or the inclination to fuck around, and he hadn't made any effort to hide it.

There was no way the Yel-Ganta could have expected to kidnap an Atlantis 'gate team and escape unscathed, which begged the question: What. The. Hell?

The Nadrai were excellent trading partners, friendly and open, and often a reliable source of information, as well. John spent a couple of days trapped in a small conference room with Lorne and Carter pouring over reports and breaking every interaction they'd ever had with them down to their component pieces, and they still couldn't come up with any way they could've seen it coming. Which in no way stopped the incident from snowballing into an ecologically irresponsible number of reports, protocols and contingency plans.

The day after that John was back on Nadrai, just him and Lorne and a squad of Marines. It took him about two and a half minutes to be certain that Fina was genuinely horrified and appalled, but there were protocols (newly written at least partly by him, so he sort of had to abide by them), and then there were the Nadrai themselves, who were so upset about the incident that John had to physically restrain a group of council members who wanted to dial up Yel-Ganta and pay a surprise visit to demand explanations. It took all of John's diplomatic patience (not a lot) and most of Lorne's (considerably better endowed) to keep everybody in the council chambers to discuss all the reasons why that was a bad idea, starting with how they still didn't know how the Yel-Ganta had managed to disable John's whole team without a single one of them being able to say how. John finally had to ask Fina to restrain them as a personal favor, telling her that they wanted to investigate further before they confronted the Yel-Ganta. The Nadrai were a more or less peaceful people, a little like the Athosians, and it took far longer than it should have to talk them down.

He took Fina aside privately to explain his very sketchy idea about finding out what had been behind the kidnapping; she'd listened attentively, and then given John a long narrow look that had reminded him with a pang of how Elizabeth used to look at him in much the same situation. Then she smiled easily, if a little craftily, and agreed to help.

John finally got back to Atlantis at around two in the morning Atlantis time, feeling worse off than he had after the kidnapping and subsequent escape. It was so late that Carter wasn't waiting for them in the Gateroom, which John shouldn't feel twitchy about, considering that he'd sent Lorne to tell her not to wait up. He was tired enough to forgo gearing down in the locker room, and headed back to his quarters instead.

It had been four days and three nights since he'd seen Rodney for any length of time, and while John hadn't got the feeling that they were leaving things awkwardly back on MD6-993 (aka the planet with the purple moon), he was starting to wonder. Rodney hadn't shown an iota of shame or regret, apology notwithstanding, and John was pretty sure he'd have noticed.

Then again, he'd been sleeping with Rodney for months and had no idea he had a thing for bondage strong enough that it trumped his characteristic dislike of discomfort, so maybe he was wrong. Maybe Rodney was having trouble dealing with it in the harsh light of day, so to speak.

He was starting to itch about it, now that the immediate aftermath of the situation was more or less handled, and even as tired as he was, the urge to detour to Rodney's quarters and find out what was going on was pretty strong. Man of action, and never mind what Rodney liked to say about simple minds equating forward motion with progress.

He didn't, because he was tired and needed a shower, and because Rodney was never at his best at two in the morning. Better to leave it until they were both at least mostly awake.

Which didn't stop him from pausing at length in front of Rodney's door, before finally shrugging off the impulse and dragging the rest of the way down the corridor to his own quarters.

It turned out to be a good thing, because he was two feet inside his own door, tac vest still dangling from one hand and backpack from the other, when Rodney loomed out of the shadows abruptly enough that John jerked backward and gasped, "Jesusfuck!"

"Exactly!" Rodney said and snatched the tac vest out of his hand and tossed it across the room, knocking something over from the sound of it. John couldn't bring himself to care.

"Rodney," John said, and then, "Oof," as his back hit the door directly following Rodney body-checking him without warning.

"I want to fuck you," Rodney growled, and John experienced a briefly incongruous combination of almost painful desire and dizzying relief that orgasm had just replaced weird and uncomfortable discussion in his immediate future. Rodney's hands were already grappling with John's belt, so John dropped his backpack and attempted to help.

It only took him a few seconds to realize that he was just slowing Rodney down; he dropped his hands to his sides and just let Rodney undress him, quick, methodical, and efficient, just like he did everything else. The whole thing was over in a matter of maybe thirty seconds, and John was standing there naked while Rodney, fully clothed all the way down to his boots, stared at him. The dim light made the planes of Rodney's face stark and angular; his eyes glittered.

John wasn't shy or anything, but there was usually naked reciprocity and at least some groping involved when the two of them did this. There had never been staring before. _Huh,_ he thought. _This is different._

But he wasn't shy, and some things you couldn't go backward from. He thought what had happened three days ago was probably one of them. That meant the footing was probably going to be a little unfamiliar for a while, and understood -- had always understood -- what that required of him. He was the steady one. He was faster at adapting than Rodney, better at rolling with it, and if that meant standing still and letting Rodney stare, he could do that.

"I want to fuck you," Rodney repeated, low and intense, and caught both of John's wrists in his big hands.

"Okay," John agreed easily, and let Rodney draw him toward the bed, turned when Rodney's hands silently told him to, let Rodney push him onto his back. Once Rodney had him where he wanted him, he took a step back and stared some more. John let him, as patiently as he could while his cock twitched and drooled against his belly. Eventually, Rodney's slow perusal reached John's face, and he made a conscious decision to meet his gaze. "Are you going to be naked at some point in the near future?" he asked after a while.

"Near is relative," Rodney replied absently, eyes sliding down to the skin of John's throat. He rubbed his hands together, familiar from the lab where it always meant, _Let's do this._ It didn't look any less like a mad-scientist type gesture in this context, and John's lips twitched a little. "An abstract concept, it conveys almost no hard data. This is near," he said, and his eyes were abruptly locked with John's again. He walked over to the side of the bed and leaned over until his lips were hovering an inch above John's cock, which was straining valiantly to twitch violently enough to make contact. "And so is this," Rodney breathed softly, breath hot and damp. Then he straightened. John's eyes had adjusted somewhat to the dimness, and he could see that Rodney's face was intent, the skin around his lips and eyes tight and strained. "And yet there is a great deal of difference between the two, isn't there, Colonel?"

John felt his eyebrows raise, surprise and question. "Colonel?"

"Colonel," Rodney repeated firmly.

John didn't quite frown, but it was an effort. "Yeah, I'd say there was a difference," he said slowly. After a moments thought, he added, "Doctor."

The tension in Rodney's face eased for just a moment. It looked almost like amusement, only without any smiling or laughing or any of the other ephemeral things that added up to Rodney's usual amused face. _Okay,_ John thought, because he had no idea what was going on here, but Rodney apparently did, and that was enough. He could figure it out as they went along. The look faded quickly, and Rodney just looked intense again, serious and a little strained, tense and edgy. "I want-" he began fiercely, but bit the sentence off almost at once. One hand tapped something short and staccato against the outside of his thigh, and his mouth tightened.

"What?" John asked, and it wasn't the stock response that various girlfriends and his ex-wife had eventually succeeded in programming into him as the correct response to an incomplete declarative of that sort. He wanted to know, to understand. It wasn't something he'd ever seen from Rodney before. He was focused like he got when he worked, but also thrumming with energy, nerves apparent in his twitching hand, but not fear, not like when he was working under fire or potentially fatal time constraints. Whatever it was, however much trouble John's brain was having parsing it, there was a low, splintery quiver at the base of his spine, a wanting twist of heat under his skin at having it directed at him. "What do you want?" His own voice sounded unfamiliar, low and thick. "You want to tie me up?"

He wasn't sure why he said _that_ , exactly, except that this was definitely different than business-as-usual, and even if John didn't know why, he could easily pinpoint _when_.

Rodney blinked slowly and tipped his head a little to one side. "Would you let me?" His voice sounded a lot like John's.

"Yeah," John said, and licked at his suddenly dry lips. "I'll let you do anything you want."

He was a little surprised to realize that it was true.

There was no surprise on Rodney's face, though, just the slightest narrowing of his eyes and sharpening of his gaze. He tipped his head slightly in the other direction. "Do you like it?" he asked.

He still sounded a little distant, like the bulk of his attention was elsewhere. Like the conversation itself was merely a counterpoint to something else entirely.

John opened his mouth to say no, but reconsidered before he actually spoke. Instead, he said, "Not so far."

That actually coaxed the ghost of a smile out of Rodney. "Hm," he said. He looked like he was considering the idea. "I don't think so."

But he seemed to have taken John's blanket permission to heart, anyway. He leaned in to curl a hand around John's hip, and John let him roll him onto his belly. He still wasn't sure exactly what was going on, but he doubted anything that involved Rodney wanting to get at his ass was going to end badly for him. Rodney's hand slid away from his hip and down to one thigh, and was joined by the other, coaxing John easily up to his knees, spreading them wide enough that he'd have to remember to keep still, or one or the other of them would slide off the edge of the mattress, which would definitely end badly. He was distracted from that thought by the feel of a fingertip feathering across the tender skin just behind his balls.

The mattress settled under Rodney's weight, one hand reaching under John to tug lightly at his cock, once, the other still pressing a gentle fingertip to his perineum. "I've never done this," Rodney told him in the same low, thick voice, without a trace of uncertainty. "Feel free to offer pointers."

Then Rodney's slick, warm tongue replaced his fingertip behind John's balls, and John shuddered with surprise and made a noise he was pretty sure didn't qualify as a "pointer."

He thought, _Maybe I should call a time-out for showers,_ but it was instantly dismissed as Rodney's tongue swept unfalteringly upward, because, god, if Rodney wasn't complaining while tonguing his hole, John was definitely not going to be the one to call a time out.   
Rodney's hand slid up to cup his ass cheeks, and John shivered helplessly to feel himself being drawn open and held that way, and he wasn't shy, god, he'd always been pretty much shameless in bed, but he could feel his face go hot and mortified at the same time that every muscle in his back went loose and yielding, sending him to his elbows on the mattress and making his thighs bunch and twitch to support his weight and maintain the position of his ass, which he didn't want to risk moving out of range of Rodney's tongue even for a second. "Christ," he hissed, "Oh," and it wasn't really much of a surprise to find out that Rodney was brain-meltingly fucking good at rimjobs.

It was slick heat and Rodney's tongue swiping unhesitatingly across his hole, pausing there as though considering, then pushing gently and generating a jolt of heated lust that had John groaning open-mouthed into the pillow and rocking back helplessly, straining against Rodney's hands to get more heat or pressure or _something_. Rodney's tongue pushed against him again, and John shuddered and fisted his hands in the sheets, and then Rodney made a low noise, harsh and demanding, and pushed again, _in_ this time, and John hitched in a partial breath, all he could manage, and let it out in what was definitely more akin to a whine than a moan.

One of Rodney's fingertips joined his tongue, and John snarled, "Yeah, god, yes," and felt the fingertips of Rodney's other hand, still holding his ass open, drill bruisingly into the muscle of his buttocks. The fingertip against his hole, however, didn't pause or hesitate, just slowly, deliberately worked its way into him, and John shoved back against it mindlessly, heedless of the slight discomfort of spit instead of lube, the burn that was more pleasure than pain anyway.

When Rodney pulled his mouth away, John let out a singularly undignified sound of protest that ended in a low, grating groan as Rodney held him still and worked another finger into him. He was wet from Rodney's mouth, wet enough that there had to have been some intent to work plenty of spit into him before the rimjob had ever started, but it was still nothing like what John was used to with Rodney, plenty of lube and patient skill working him open. It was nowhere near as slick, and it felt like he could count the ridges on Rodney's knuckles as he muscled in, and it had been a long time, god, so long since John had been opened like this, too fast and messy and hard. It was different, and maybe it should have been a bad thing, or at least something he didn't want. It had never been about good, any of those times when this was the norm, it had only been about necessary, and if you were gay and in the military, you took what you needed sometimes, you had to, even when it was dirty and seedy and harsh.

He hadn't missed it; within the first week with Rodney he'd had more good sex than all the other sex he'd ever had combined.

But he was shoving back, pushing himself onto Rodney's fingers harder than he'd ever pushed back any of those other times, and his cock felt like fire trapped in skin. "Do it," he heard himself growl, "Do it, Rodney, do it, yeah."

"I want this," Rodney snarled back hoarsely, reminiscent enough of how he'd sounded after their last encounter that John thought he might come for just a second, just shoot across the sheets like he hadn't done since he was a teenager. "I want to fuck you like this," Rodney grated out, and his fingers were gone so suddenly that John choked out a moan, and then were replaced so abruptly by Rodney's mouth again, his tongue, that the moan transformed into a hitching, gasping groan midway through. Then his tongue was gone as well, and John's head was spinning a little at the combination of need and frustration. "No condom," Rodney hissed, "no lube. Want to fuck you like this, just like this, like I know you've taken it before, Colonel."

John whited out or something, lost a few seconds, because the next thing he knew he could feel the blunt press of the crown of Rodney's cock against his asshole; he had no idea if Rodney had ditched his pants or just unzipped, just that it was there, and, god, John wanted it so bad he was shaking.

"Say yes, say yes, say yes," Rodney demanded, voice cracked and urgent, fingertips of both hands digging into John's hips.

"Yes," John practically shouted, and Rodney snarled something unintelligible as he jerked John back and up, and pushed forward hard. John hissed at the burn, but even without lube his body conceded fairly gracefully to Rodney's cock. He hadn't been nearly well enough stretched, and it was all fierce friction and raw nerve endings, but it didn't actually _hurt_ , it was just the bright ache of being uncompromisingly opened. John was panting and desperate, shoving up to get his arms under him so he could push back against the steady restraint of Rodney's big hands. "Come on, come on," he growled, but Rodney would not be hurried, just continued to push steadily into his body, and John swore and sweated and wriggled until Rodney's cock jabbed abruptly against his prostate. He felt himself unknot all at once, the bend of his back deepening, thighs shuddering, and Rodney's hands were sure and competent on his hips, both holding him up and pulling him back onto Rodney's cock.

"Fuck," John whispered harshly against his own forearm when Rodney finally bottomed out, feeling fucking enormous and burning hot without the cool layer of latex between Rodney's flesh and his own. They both went still, John quivering and panting, cock hanging hot and heavy and needful in mid-air. Rodney's breathing was harsh behind him, heavy and ragged, but he was otherwise eerily silent, fingers splayed wide around John's hips, two fingertips of each hand drilling deep, hot points of near-pain into his hipbones. "Come on," John whispered starkly. "Come the fuck on, McKay!"

"I knew," Rodney murmured thickly. "Oh, God." And then he pulled back an inch, maybe two at the most, his hands still imprisoning John's hips, forcing him still, and then shoved back in, hard and bright and fucking perfect, and John choked out a gasping little snarl, and Rodney pulled back and did it again, shallow and precise and right on the fucking mark, sending bright white bolts of pleasure snapping along John's spine, shivering through his belly and tightening his balls. He shifted his grip on John's hips, shifted _John_ with deliberate, coaxing pressure, and when he thrust again it was at a different angle, an impossibly _better_ angle. Rodney made a low, pleased sound while John gasped and shivered and luxuriated in the feel of being both wide open and pinned down by Rodney's body, his hands and his cock. It was roughly familiar and strangely hedonistic, doing it like _this_ , but in a bed, and with someone who would look him in the eye tomorrow, someone who was even now stroking a hand along John's ribs as though he just liked the feel of John's skin and bone beneath his palm. "I knew you'd, God, you feel so good," Rodney groaned.

"Rodney," John hissed and arched and pushed back against Rodney's hands.

"You don't know, you don't even know," Rodney husked, voice harsh and taut. "Wanted to see you like this, Colonel, wanted to be the one to do this to you." And even through the desperate fog of heady lust, the hot need coiling in John's belly and slicking his skin with sweat, he could hear the baffled wonder edging Rodney's tone.

"You can do anything you want to me," John whispered, and Rodney's hips twitched in reaction, stuttering unevenly and still _so fucking good_ , and John realized abruptly what this was, a flash of crystalline insight. This was quid pro quo, Rodney needing this from him in exchange for what he'd given up back on the planet with the purple moon, needing to level the playing field between them. Maybe if it had been anyone else John would have been pissed, but letting Rodney fuck with his obvious and well-documented problem with authority just didn't seem like that big a deal to him. He trusted Rodney, and it wasn't like John wasn't getting anything out of it. John getting something out of it was, almost certainly, Rodney's entire goal.

For several seconds, Rodney just fucked him, shallow, sharp thrusts that had John open-mouthed and panting. Then Rodney said, "It's mutual," in a low, brittle voice that sounded like it was coming through clenched teeth, and John wondered if that was due to the effort Rodney was putting into fucking him or whether it was just that hard for him to say something like that. It was Rodney, so it could be either.

"Yeah?" John asked, shifting to try to get some leverage, but Rodney had uncanny control radar (or, actually, just an instinctive grasp of physics), and just shifted with John, keeping him splayed and unable to exert any control of his own. John didn't really mind much. "Even-" he gasped out, "-the bondage thing?" Rodney shuddered behind him; John could feel it along the insides of his thighs, pressed intimately to the outsides of Rodney's, and more immediately inside him, the head of Rodney's cock pressed hard to his prostate, just nudging incrementally against it. He groaned, and Rodney's hands tightened on his hips. He found himself asking the question he'd been thinking about for the last few days without realizing he was going to say anything at all. "You ever done that before?"

Rodney went still, the muscles of his thighs bunching and relaxing, sunk balls deep in John's ass. After a long moment, he answered. "Not. Not exactly." Then he pulled back and _shoved_ hard enough to make John gasp, the insides of his eyelids spangling briefly with bright color. "Not with anyone else."

John's head was abruptly full of the idea of Rodney messing around, just him and some rope and a hard on, and he heard himself say, "You... you tied yourself up?" His voice was low and shocked and ragged and blatantly turned on.

Rodney made a noise that was a little too guttural to be a laugh, but he started thrusting again, those same shallow motions that would've been almost teasing if they weren't so hard. "Just my hands, mostly," he answered, and John could picture that with pornographic clarity, Rodney flushed and wanting and working his bound hands down awkwardly to curl around his hard cock.

"Oh, Christ," John groaned. "I want to see you do that."

Rodney's hips stuttered again, shattering his steady pace. "You," Rodney whispered throatily, and then seemed to recall what he was doing abruptly; when he started thrusting again, it was harder and faster and far less controlled. His voice, on the other hand, was much steadier. "I never had the time," he said, hips slapping against John's ass. "I lived in a dorm from fifteen to twenty-five, no privacy, no-" he paused, shoved deep and shuddering on the verge, obviously fighting back his orgasm, and John shuddered along with him and stayed still. "No time for anything elaborate except this one time..." He shoved forward hard again, shuddering, as if just _remembering_ what he had done 'one time' was enough to derail his efforts not to come, and John was pretty sure that the conversation would be over the second Rodney came, which was just not acceptable.

So he shoved back, using Rodney's distraction to steal some leverage, enough to shove Rodney back enough to force him to go still or pull out, thighs straining to hold himself up. He made a strangled sound of objection that tugged heatedly at John's belly, and John twisted to look at him over his shoulder. "Tell me," he demanded.

Rodney was wide-eyed, face flushed. He blinked at John, and his eyes narrowed a little, and John twisted deliberately, tightened his muscles around Rodney's cock, savoring the burn of raw flesh and the dazed pleasure that flashed across Rodney's face equally, and brought out the big guns. "Tell me, and then come in my ass."

Rodney closed his eyes, fingertips bruising on John's hips, and swallowed visibly. Rodney opened his eyes after another few seconds, and met John's gaze. He gave a nod, a little uncertainty in his face, in the crooked set of his mouth, but mostly just heat and want. He pressed a hand to the small of John's back, the other sliding against the back of John's thigh. John let him urge him into another position, even more impossibly splayed than before, thighs so wide that they ached a little, belly touching the sheet beneath him. It brought John's cock into contact with the sheet, and he couldn't quite keep from rocking his hips a little, straining for friction and pressure. Rodney's hand pressed a little firmer at the small of John's back, thumb sweeping a soothing arc across John's sweaty skin. He'd shifted even as he'd been shifting John, and his big thighs holding John's effortlessly wide, pushed up so that his knees were nearly level with his shoulder blades. Rodney planted a hand beside John's shoulder on the mattress, leaning low over John's back like a jockey, close enough for John to feel the heat of his skin, but not quite touching. Rodney's breath puffed against the back of his neck.

The position itself was just a hair shy of painful; it wouldn't take much to shift it from strain to pain, and John wasn't twenty any more. He wouldn't be able to stay like this -- pinned face down and splayed like a frog -- for very long.

The angle, however, was excruciatingly good, Rodney's cock jammed right up against his prostate so hard that even with both of them still, it sent jolting pleasure messages to John's cock, made him sweat and swear.

Rodney apparently agreed, as he was murmuring, softly and brokenly, lips brushing the angle of one of John's shoulder blades, barely audible and only semi-coherent. "Fuck, oh, fuck, you feel so-" He pressed his forehead against the back of John's neck for a long moment, and then growled out, "Like this." John could feel the trembling effort in the arm braced beside him. It was inexplicably just as hot as feeling Rodney growl into the nape of his neck. He didn't get what Rodney meant at first, but then he did get it, all at once, and groaned, hips stuttering to shove his cock against the sheets. "It was clothesline," Rodney whispered, "around my thighs and the bed frame, and my wrists… the headboard." Rodney gulped in a harsh, panting breath. "And no way to get off but against the sheets, and it took, it took-" Rodney was almost sobbing with the effort to tell it, his hips shuddering as he worked his cock into John roughly. John's throat was starting to feel raw, his groans hoarse and helpless. "-it was, it took fucking forever, but, it was, God, I never came so hard again until, until you-"

"I want to fuck you like that," John interrupted, gruff and sharp, and Rodney jerked hard and made a soft sound that shouldn't have been able to convey the kind of desperation John could hear in it, and then he was fucking John hard, both palms braced against the bed.

John was alternately shoving himself against the bed and back into the heavy drag of Rodney's cock and didn't even notice when Rodney somehow worked a hand beneath him, flat between John's cock and the bed, just pressing him against his own belly, until Rodney said, "I want to feel it when you come, I want to feel it around my cock," in a cracked and frantic voice that shot straight to John's balls. He shoved himself against Rodney's hand, and Rodney's cock felt like it was splitting him open. It was more than enough to snap him taut and shaking, fiery pleasure a rushing flood from nuts to navel, spine arched into a tight bow. Rodney snarled something consonant heavy into the nape of John's neck, and he was so raw and over-sensitized that John could feel the sudden, slick difference when Rodney came, and it sent him shuddering through the longest, slowest, most luxuriously powerful series of aftershocks John had ever felt.

For a while, at least a minute or two, he didn't think anything at all beyond, _If we keep having sex this good, I'm going to end up crippled._ Eventually, Rodney eased his weight off of John's back and hooked one hand around the knob of John's right knee, drawing John's leg out straight as he moved toward the foot of the bed. John, lost in post-orgasmic haziness, hadn't really noticed the strain of the position until he was no longer pressed into it. He sighed in relief as Rodney used his grip on John's knee to flip him neatly onto his back, and pulled himself into a long, hard stretch. The muscles of his thighs and back twitched and ached pleasantly, and he let himself sprawl back on the sheets, looser and more relaxed than he could remember being in a long time.

Rodney, he saw, was still fully dressed. He was still wearing his uniform jacket, even. The collar was ringed with sweat and standing up on one side. His pants were hanging open, and he was staring at John again. He looked weirdly startled.

"I can't believe I get to fuck you!" he blurted, and then his eyes widened in horror. "Um."

John was pretty sure his smile was one part goofy and two parts well-fucked. "It's mutual," he said, aware that his attempt at cool was probably being undermined by the goof-factor, but not caring all that much. It seemed like it was the right thing to say, even factoring in the stupid smile, because Rodney's eyes lost that crazy, about-to-bolt look, and he smirked.

"Of course it is," he said, and stripped off his jacket, tossing it on the floor. The shirt underneath was dark with sweat from neck to belly, and under both arms, which would have been totally not-sexy, except John's brain associated it with Rodney working on something important and immediate, stripped to his shirtsleeves, biceps peeking out occasionally as he shoved his hands into the guts of a console or a DHD, saving their asses at the same time that he insulted their intelligence. Rodney stripped it off and flung it carelessly after his jacket, and then shoved his pants down his legs before sinking down on the foot of the bed to unlace his boots. "I have a lot more stamina than most people give me credit for, and a great ass. Also, genius is something that spans nearly infinite applications."

"Mmm," John agreed, and let Rodney shove him around until he'd made himself comfortable, and then arrange John to his liking as well. John's extremities were leaden, and he was pretty sure the slide into the sleep was going to be so short as to be nonexistent.

He was almost there when Rodney said softly, nearly a whisper, "So. Are we...? I mean, are we seriously doing this?"

John couldn't tell from Rodney's tone if he was in favor or against, so he opened an eye to look at Rodney's face.

Rodney looked a little anxious, but there was no indication of the kind of tension that telegraphed a Rodney that was violently opposed to something. His shoulder under John's head wasn't tense, there was no twitchy sense of impending retreat in his body language, and John thought Rodney was... asking for confirmation, more than anything else. Which, okay, was very Rodney-like. He wasn't comfortable with fuzzy variables.

Against extreme protest from at least four-fifths of his body, John levered himself up on one elbow so he could make eye contact.

Rodney arched a brow slightly, and didn't shy away from John's gaze, which was reassuring.

Because honestly, John was perfectly happy to play kinky games with Rodney, even really _filthy_ kinky games, but he didn't really want to mess with anything that either of them wasn't fully willing to own up to. Humiliation had never been a turn-on for him, either giving or receiving, and God knew he was ill-equipped to work either of them through any actual issues.

He let his voice go low and smoky, and asked, "Are you asking me if I'm going to tie you down and fuck you, Rodney?" Rodney's mouth dropped open slightly, but his eyes actually went narrow and calculating rather than wide and surprised, which was unexpectedly hot. John would bet dimes to donuts that the equation in Rodney's head had nothing to do with whether or not he wanted that, but rather with the most practical and efficient way to make it happen. "Tie you up and watch you jerk off," John added, and Rodney's breath hitched. John touched Rodney's soft lower lip with the tip of his thumb. "Fuck your mouth again?" There was no point in trying to conceal how the thought of _that_ affected him, so John didn't even try. "Yeah, we're seriously doing this." He paused, mostly just to enjoy the look on Rodney's face, and then added, "I want to be able to see your face when I fuck your mouth next time."

Rodney swallowed visibly, and John felt a little smug for about three seconds. Then Rodney said, "Thank God, because I was seriously going to be pissed if that was just one of those things people say during really hot sex without meaning it," and John had to work really hard to hold back a snicker. Rodney's hand, which had been splayed casually over John's hip (covering what would almost certainly be an interesting pattern of bruises in the morning) tightened a little and tugged John in closer.


	3. Chapter 3

The day after Rodney fucked him into the mattress -- and, God, he was going to think twice about letting Rodney do that to him again, because he could feel it every time he moved -- Lorne's team went missing on M22-338. It was a first contact mission, and it could be argued that there was nothing worse than going missing on first contact. Nearly every time John had ever been thrown into jail by the natives, it had been first contact.

There was a hurried, desperate briefing in which the Yel-Ganta were mentioned, and by the time John escaped, his team had assembled in the locker room, geared up and ready to go. Going anywhere at all was unlikely unless they could find out for certain that Lorne's team's disappearance had nothing to do with what had happened to SGA-1, but Atlantis had become a 'just in case' kind of base, so it didn't surprise John to see them.

John had been stationed on a lot of those, actually. The kind where you took your radio with you to take a piss and your gun when going for a jog.

They were still in the locker room when Ronon said, "We could check the waystation planets," in his low, gruffly matter-of-fact tone. "If it's a trap at the 'gate, those 'gates won't be rigged."

"We still do not know how the Yel-Ganta managed to render our entire team unconscious at once," Teyla agreed. "It would be unwise to fall into the same trap twice."

"Fool me once," John nodded.

"Waystation planets?" Rodney asked, throwing Ronon an arched brow while he cocked a foot up onto one of the benches to adjust his thigh holster; John had to avert his eyes. "What, the planet with the empty temples?"

Rodney was looking insufferably smug, a little extra swagger in his step, perhaps to make up for John's utter inability to swagger without wincing and making it completely obvious that he'd been fucked in the ass last night until he could barely stand up. John didn't much begrudge him the swagger. He'd spent a few hours with a big cup of coffee and the Ancient database that morning, and he'd made a couple of interesting discoveries. He had no doubt he'd get back some of his own. And he was pretty sure Rodney knew that.

"That's what the runners call 'em," Ronon told them. "Mostly we wake up on one the first time, when they first let us loose to run."

"Them," John repeated, frowning. "Them, you mean plural? As in more than one?"

"Yeah, I know what plural means," Ronon agreed, giving John a narrow look. "And yeah, there are a bunch of 'em."

"And you didn't think maybe we needed to know this?" Rodney demanded, giving John a look that said he was on the same page, and it was not a happy ending page. "That they were Wraith associated planets?"

Ronon shrugged. "Thought it was obvious," he said, and John tapped his radio on at the same time.

"Colonel Carter, I'm gonna need--" he paused to give Ronon a look. "How many do you know?"

"Six," Ronon said. "Six that I know; there're probably more."

And John couldn't even yell at him, really; Ronon hadn't been in the command staff meeting, damnit. There was no way he could've known that the rest of them didn't know, that there was still so much that Atlantis didn't know. And Teyla had _told_ him that Ronon knew the planet. John should have pursued it. "--five teams," he tells Sam. "Get them kitted out and ready to gate out in fifteen. We're on our way to the control room with 'gate addresses."

"From now on," John told him as they headed for the control room, "just assume we don't know anything."

"I told you I'd been there before," Ronon muttered; the look he gave John was as close to exasperated as Ronon was really capable of. "You didn't ask."

"I know, buddy, I know," John said, wincing as they pounded down the stairs. "Not your fault."

It took a little while to relay the information to Carter. Ronon told her about the waystation planets, and what he thought the Wraith did with them. It turned out that most of the planets he knew of had once hosted whole Wraith-worshipping civilizations, most of which had been destroyed by a coalition of planets that no longer existed call the Cabal. Sateda had been a member. The planets were left vacant, he told them, for centuries. They weren't safe to go to until the temples fell down. The Wraith used them for bases, staging grounds, anything they needed solid land for.

There were whole histories written about the Cabal, Ronon informed them. Everyone knew about it, and knew that once upon a time, it had mounted what could be construed as a holy war against wraith-worshipping civilizations.

"The Zeel," Ronon told them. "The Romriigin, the Kaltekin. They're children's stories. They made deals with the Wraith so their own worlds prospered to the detriment of other worlds. They raided through the 'rings and stole people."

Teyla looked grim. "I have heard these stories. The tales say that the temples housed great markets where those captured were housed until the Wraith came, and "paid" for the captives with stolen life for their worshippers. I have not heard of them used, however, and did not know the addresses for them were even known any longer. I assumed they'd been lost to time, if they had ever existed at all."

Carter nodded, looking grim, and turned to Ronon. "You think the 'gate to Yel-Ganta was rigged somehow?"

Ronon shrugged. "It's the only thing that makes sense."

"No, he's right," Rodney agreed, frowning. "How else could they have rendered the whole team unconscious at one time?" He fiddled with the datapad he was holding, his mouth twisting further into a lopsided frown. "The effects of whatever they used weren't unlike something along the lines of a Wraith stunner," he added. "And I've been stunned often enough to know."

John nodded slowly, less certain. "It's hard to know for sure, but it could've been. We were unconscious for a while longer than a stunner blast usually lasts, and being tied up made it hard to tell if there was numbness or tingling."

"Okay," Carter said. "Let's work under the assumption that the Yel-Ganta, at least, have something that stuns people as they come through the gate. That rules out going there to check for the Major's team." She turned to Chuck. "Can you figure out where the closest 'gate to Yel-Ganta is and how long it'd take a Jumper to make it from there to the planet?"

"Yes, Ma'am," Chuck agreed, turning toward his console.

"I don't think Yel-Ganta is the place to look," John said thoughtfully, and it was true, he didn't, though he wasn't sure exactly why he thought so. "Besides, I've got something set up with the Nadrai. Fina's looking into it for me."

Carter cocked a brow at him. "Something you should have let me know in the debriefing, Colonel?"

John shrugged awkwardly. "There's no guarantee the Nadrai will find anything out, but maybe I should have mentioned it."

"Maybe," Carter agreed too-brightly. "Why don't you give me the details now."

"Well, because there aren't really any details," John admitted. "The Yel-Ganta traded with the Nadrai for salt until we came along. I asked Fina to pretend the incident with the kidnapping had strained relations between the Nadrai and Atlantis, and to approach the Yel-Ganta to see about trading with them for salt again. If they seemed agreeable, I figured Fina could let us know, and we could send someone or someones along with the Nadrai trade contingent when they went to Yel-Ganta, just to take a look around and see if we could learn anything."

"You asked the Nadrai to put themselves at risk like that?" Carter demanded, eyes narrowed.

John held up both hands. "Believe me, this was a lot less risky than the war-party they wanted to send!"

Carter made a face, but didn't pursue it further, so John guessed she believed him. "Okay, let's get teams out to the six addresses Ronon knows for the waystation planets first; if we don't find anything, we'll circle back to the Yel-Ganta."

For once, it wasn't John's team that ended up finding the wayward team; about six minutes was enough with a jumper to be sure the temple-structures -- and it turned out there were several on each of the waystation planets -- were empty of life signs, so John's team was gone eighteen minutes round trip, including the walk to the Jumper bay and back to the control room.

By the time they got back, SGA-4 had called in to report that they'd located the Major and his team and were on their way in. Six minutes later they brought Lorne's people through in Jumper Four, two of the four of them still unconscious. Keller swooped in with a swarm of medics, and soon everyone was awake and talking and obviously hale and hearty, and John's team stood around fidgeting in full gear.

Ronon said, "This is boring," and left.

John exchanged a look with Rodney; he privately agreed with Ronon, but as the C.O. he sort of had to hang around. Rodney cocked a brow and shrugged. "You guys go on; I've got to go to the debrief."

"It's our, ah, chess night," Rodney mentioned in what was surely supposed to be a casual voice, but really really wasn't.

John would've been irritated except Teyla was the only one around to hear it, and Teyla either already knew and didn't care, or just flat didn't care. She was already headed off toward the exit of the Jumper bay, probably eager to see Torren.

"I'll catch you later," John said, waving Rodney off.

The debrief took forever even though it was essentially a remix of the same song John's team had sung when they'd gone to the first contact mission to Yel-Ganta.

"Do we think the Yel-Ganta had something to do with this," Carter wanted to know, "or should we be looking for some other group entirely, some group that's working through these people?"

"Does it matter?" John asked. "If it's someone else, the easiest way to find out is to start with questioning the Yel-Ganta. Then we can go on from there, depending on what the Yel-Ganta have to say."

"That's easier said than done, Colonel; we can't use the Stargate to go to Yel-Ganta unless we're sure it's not going to incapacitate an incoming team." Carter was being more obtuse than usual, and John was bored and uncomfortable as hell sitting his sore ass on the hard conference room chairs for what seemed like eternity. He was a little less diplomatic than was strictly advisable when he answered.

"Which would be why I asked the Nadrai for help."

"Without any kind of authorization or communication via the chain of command," Carter reminded him.

"I did what I had to do to safeguard the lives of both the Nadrai and the Yel-Ganta," John said tightly. "Isn't that my _job_."

Carter sighed. "You don't need me to tell you what your job is, Colonel," she said, pinching the bridge of her nose between forefinger and thumb. "Just try to remember you report to me? At least occasionally?"

"Yes, ma'am," John said, even feeling slightly repentant for the whole thing.

She waved him off with a distinctly Rodney-ish gesture that he was pretty sure she'd be horrified to realize she'd picked up, but had John grinning broadly.   
By now, Rodney would have found what John had left in his quarters and would be attempting to figure out what they were via the Ancient database. John stopped in the mess to grab a sandwich -- Rodney would have already eaten, and John was going to want to keep up his strength for the evening game of "chess."

***

"These look like Wonder Woman's magic bracelets," was the first thing Rodney said as John walked through the door.

"That so?" John asked, letting his voice drop just for the pleasure of watching Rodney swing his face around to look at him, eyes wide and startled. "Then let's see how they look, Wonder Woman."

"Wait, what...?"

"Just put them on, Rodney," John said, and took a couple of steps forward, stripping off his jacket as he came in and tossing it onto the bed. He didn't intend them to be using it, so he stripped off his thigh-holster and tossed it atop his jacket.

Rodney was watching him uncertainly, still holding the two blue-white rings that John had tracked down that morning in a recessed panel in the same room in which the energy cell was located. He supposed they should've checked that room out a little more thoroughly, but John didn't feel too bad about it. The satisfaction of Rodney having no idea of what he was holding was totally worth not having them available to them earlier. It wasn't like they'd really needed them.

"What are they?" Rodney asked, but his eyes were gleaming with something like suspicion, and John figured he'd probably guessed at least part of it. That was okay, though. There was no way Rodney could know all the details, and it was the details John was looking forward to demonstrating most.

"Don't make me put them on you myself," John said casually, not really serious about it until he saw the way Rodney flushed in response. Then it all got very serious very quickly.

John took a single step toward him, and was half-amazed and half-gratified to see Rodney _retreating_ backward, still holding the blue-white metal of the rings in both hands. He looked both unnerved and uncertain, but John could see the tent he was throwing in his khakis from ten feet away. "Don't make me make you," John tried, surprised at the way the words came out, low and rough and even menacing, doubly surprised at the way Rodney reacted to them, taking another step back at the same time he thrust the bracelets out toward John with an expression that bordered on desperation.

John closed the distance between them and took the bracelets; Rodney's hands, he saw, were trembling minutely as he handed them over. John thought about it for about .4 seconds, and then took another totally unnecessary step, moving into Rodney's space and crowding him back up against the wall for no reason other than it seemed like the thing to do.

Rodney sucked in a breath sharply, back thudding against the wall, but his eyes where wide and dazed, his mouth open and wet.

"You want me to make you, huh, Rodney?" John murmured, low and sultry, and watched the color come up in Rodney's cheeks even as some of the dazedness left his gaze to be replaced by bright, hot want. "You want to see what they do, yeah?"

"Yeah," Rodney replied hoarsely, and licked his lips. John dipped in to give Rodney's lips a lick as well, and he tipped his head back obligingly, lips parted and sweetly open for John's tongue. He gasped when John shoved him a little more firmly against the wall and caught one of Rodney's wrists within the tight circle of his hand.

The bracelet in that hand clicked open soundlessly with a thought and sealed tightly around Rodney's wrist with another, and John knew from having messed with them already himself that they join was so perfect as to appear seamless. Rodney jerked his hand up to stare at it, and then to stare accusingly at John. "Where did you get this?" he demanded, and John ignored him completely to duck in for another kiss, preferring Rodney all kiss-flushed and ruffled to receiving a lecture on the proper chain of custody for new Ancient devices.

"Relax, Rodney, I'm following proper protocol here. They're going directly from my custody to yours." Rodney snorted and opened his mouth -- probably to say something about how this wasn't at all what the protocol was intended to cover -- and John took advantage of his distraction to capture his other wrist and snap the second bracelet into place. "There," John said, and grasped Rodney by his improbably thick biceps, pushing him hard back into the wall. Rodney let himself be pushed, and that was enough to wind the coil of heat between John's hipbones even tighter, because Rodney _could_ resist if he wanted to, and do a fairly damned good job of it. John had seen him do it, had seen him getting better and better over the course of the last four years, and that just made the lack of any kind of resistance better somehow.

John leaned in and kissed Rodney's mouth open, really taking his time with it, a move designed primarily to evoke precisely the reaction Rodney gave him; he clutched at John's shirt briefly, then shoved both hands greedily beneath it, hands hot and needy on John's skin. John caught his wrists in both hands and gave him a shark's grin when Rodney tried to jerk them free.

"John," Rodney groaned, and his voice was already wrecked, and John found he was not all that surprised that he was already getting off on this new thing they had going on, that it already felt almost familiar to see Rodney all dazed and flushed, and to want to make him helpless as well.

 _God_ , John thought as the idea of Rodney helpless surged straight to his cock, and pulled Rodney's arms up so his hands were level with his shoulders. He shoved Rodney's wrists back against the wall with more force than was really necessary just to hear Rodney make a short, gasping sound of mingled pain and surprise. He engaged the bracelets with a thought, and then took a step back.

"Got you," he murmured, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long; one thing you could never say about Rodney was that he was slow on the uptake. He made one quick, aborted attempt to step forward, and realization shone on his face for an instant, bright understanding quickly eclipsed by something much darker and hotter. John watched Rodney test the bracelets, straining against them for several seconds, biceps bunching and forearms flexing, and it was hot as hell, it was almost as good to see him fight as it was to see him _not_ fight. When he relaxed it was all at once, whole body going loose and almost languid; John was a little surprised that he kept his feet. His wrists stayed firmly against the wall, and his chin went down, resting against his chest as he panted for breath. He was trembling, John saw, same as he'd been back on the planet with the purple moon, and when he looked up again his eyes were bright with something John couldn't sort out, something complicated and intense.

"Satisfied?" John asked softly, and Rodney blinked at him and then dipped his head, cheeks and ears flushing darkly. "Got you right where you want you, huh, Rodney?"

John dropped to his knees at Rodney's feet and looked up at him, splayed against the wall with his cock a hard ridge distending the fly of his khakis.

"Oh, God," Rodney gasped out weakly, and John ran the side of his thumb along the length of Rodney's cock, pausing to trace the flare of the head which was clearly outlined through the material. Rodney's hands twitched above the smooth metal of the cuffs, then went loose again. Rodney was staring down at John's hands, eyes wide and surprised, as though whatever he'd expected about what they were going to do next, it hadn't been this.

John wasn't worried about what Rodney had expected, though. It was his turn, and he wanted this, wanted Rodney pinned against the wall and gasping as John cupped him through his pants.

"John," Rodney groaned and pushed his cock roughly into the heel of John's hand. "Yeah, oh," he whispered thickly, and John thought about blowing him, hearing his groan like that, all hoarse-voiced and reverent while John swallowed his cock.

It would be good, yeah, but it wasn't quite what he was looking for. He unbuttoned Rodney's khakis and shoved them down his legs, taking his boxers with them; the whole thing bunched up on top of his boots, and Rodney's cock jutted almost angry-looking from the light brown brush of his pubic hair. It was dark red and already seeping fluid. John leaned in casually to lick it away, sharp and astringent, a taste John loved. Rodney groaned and rocked his head back against the wall, hips attempting to sway forward and follow John's mouth until John pinned them to the wall with both hands.

John slid his mouth around the head of Rodney's cock and sucked lightly, eyes open and aimed up toward Rodney's face. Rodney swung his head to one side, mouth slack and wet; his hips strained against John's hands.

When John pulled away, Rodney made an inarticulate noise of objection and tipped his head forward to look at John; that pleading look was back in his eyes, the one John remembered from the planet, and John loved it. John couldn't fucking believe they'd been fucking for months without ever having seen anything like it on Rodney's face, because he was well on his way to wanting to do nothing _but_ find ways of putting that look on Rodney's face.

Rodney seemed to feel the same way about whatever he was seeing on John's face -- John suspected it might be slack-jawed lust -- because he was staring at John and taking short, gasping breaths; it sounded like Rodney had forgotten how to breathe, and John liked the sound of it just fine.

He reached up and touched the bands at Rodney's wrists which came away from the wall easily at his mental command. "They're keyed to whoever puts them on you," John told Rodney as he gently pulled downward until Rodney slid down to his knees, his wrists still trapped in John's hands. "You can't take them off yourself, and no one else can take them off for you." Rodney's breath hitched, and John grinned. "And they'll adhere to anything." He proved this by pushing Rodney's wrists down and back and pressing them against the sides of Rodney's boots, leaving him arched slightly backward. John slid one knee in between Rodney's and nudged them farther apart.

"Jesus," Rodney whispered shakily, and John leaned in to kiss him, pressing in hard enough that Rodney had to struggle against his center of gravity to stay upright; even so, his mouth was open and gasping under John's lips, and all John had to do was glance down at the jut of Rodney's cock to be sure Rodney was having a good time.

John stood up, and said, "I want to feed you my cock. I want to see your face this time."

And Rodney went a little bit crazy. He groaned out John's name, long and low and pained, and leaned forward so abruptly that he'd have tipped forward onto his face if John hadn't been standing right in front of him. Instead of faceplanting on the ground, Rodney faceplanted at the crease between John's hip and thigh, buried his face in that crease and groaned out something too muffled for John to be sure of, but that certainly sounded like it could have been: "Please."

John found himself with his hand cupping the back of Rodney's neck, his thumb fanning gently along the fine hair at his nape, and murmuring, "Shh, I've got you," in a low, soothing voice he hadn't even been aware he possessed.

Rodney groaned into John's hip, then turned his face to mouth at the shape of John's cock through his BDUs. John jerked them open left handed, clumsily -- unwilling to move his right hand away from the back of Rodney's neck for reasons he chose not to look too closely at -- and didn't even bother stripping down properly. It was somehow hotter not to, so he just shoved his boxer briefs down far enough to get his cock and balls free and left his BDUs hanging low on his hips.

Rodney went immediately for his cock, but John held him still with the hand on his neck until Rodney stopped straining and was still under his hand. John was so hard he could barely think, but he'd been thinking about this all day -- thinking about whether or not Rodney would let him do it -- so it didn't take much in the way of planning. He lifted his cock in his left hand and held it out of the way and drew Rodney close with his right.

Rodney didn't even hesitate.

John let out a gasping breath when Rodney pressed his lips against John's balls, all hot tongue and open mouth. He was breathing fast through his nose, would've been panting if his mouth hadn't been otherwise occupied, and making short, rough noises of desire, noises that were all throaty consonants.

"Put them..." John gasped, but he didn't have to finish the sentence because Rodney was already doing it, tipping his head and sucking John's balls into his hot mouth. "Oh, fuuuck," John hissed, his head rolling back on his neck as wet heat surrounded his balls and spiraled upward to curl at the base of his spine. Rodney moaned, and John's knees nearly buckled at the vibration. It was good, fantastic even, one of those things John had always wanted, but if there was a graceful way to ask for it, John had never found it. He looked down at McKay and saw his flushed face and tightly closed eyes -- there were already wet trails streaking from the corners, something John made a mental note to really devote some thought to later, because he _knew_ he wasn't choking Rodney this time -- and had to squeeze the base of his own cock to avert an immediate evening-ending incident. "Enough, that's enough," he gasped out, voice unsteady, and Rodney pulled back slowly, careful to keep his teeth to himself, and immediately tipped his head back, panting harshly, eyes closed, mouth wet and red.

"God," John said without anything resembling forethought, everything that entered his head just falling right out of his mouth like stones down a well. "I wish I had one of those fucking gag-things, the ones that hold your mouth open that you see in bondage flicks." And John probably would have flushed at having even thought it, let alone said it, but Rodney's eyes snapped open, and they were wet and startled and bright as live coals. His eyes left no doubt at all that if John did have one of those, Rodney would have let him use it.

 _Fuck_ , John thought, and really, really wished he did. Not because Rodney wasn't going to suck his cock -- Rodney was, of course, Rodney wanted to almost as much as John wanted him to -- but because of how it would _look_ , God, and how it would feel to make Rodney helpless like that. It was shocking how much John wanted to do that, how much he wanted to have the power to do that, and he felt sure that thirty-eight was far too late in life to be finding something like that out about yourself.

"Christ, Rodney," John grated out, and Rodney's mouth dropped open like that was some kind of code word. "Fuck," John said, and dragged his right hand from behind Rodney's neck to cradle the side of his jaw instead, sliding his thumb into Rodney's mouth as he did. Rodney's tongue flicked across the side of John's thumb, but otherwise he did nothing at all as John slid the pad of his thumb along Rodney's bottom teeth on one side and pushed down. Rodney's jaw went loose and John opened him up, simple and smooth as anything, and it was easily the hottest thing John had ever done. Again.

He looked down at Rodney's naked thighs and widespread knees, his cock thick and vulnerable thrusting out from the V of his thighs; there was a dime sized droplet of moisture on the floor. The head of Rodney's cock was shiny with it. Rodney's biceps were flexing minutely, just the slightest bunch and release of muscles; when John leaned to look behind him, he saw it was because Rodney was twisting his wrists in the bracelets methodically, over and over.

"Okay," John said, and hooked the thumb of his left hand over the top of his cock bringing the tip in line with Rodney's open mouth. Once again this was going to be over embarrassingly quickly, but John couldn't bring himself to care. He slid the tip of his cock between Rodney's lips; it rode along the side of his thumb as he pushed inside, and Rodney's eyes fluttered closed. "Okay," John whispered, and used his free hand to cradle the back of Rodney's skull, tipping his chin up deliberately.

The first difference was the angle; it was perfect this time, exactly optimal; John wasn't balanced on his toes or peripherally aware of the stone edge of the alter digging into the back of his hand. Conditions were perfect, and the result was that John slid smoothly into Rodney's throat without a single hitch, all the way in with one long, slow push. Rodney swallowed once, hard, but he didn't choke, didn't make much sound at all aside from a low moan that was barely a hum. John groaned deeply, convinced to the depths of his soul that nothing felt better than being balls deep in Rodney's throat; nothing could possibly be wetter or hotter. "Yeah," he gasped, and pulled back; Rodney's eyes were tearing freely, but he made a low, strangled sound of objection, which John chose to take as an invitation.

John had had a lot of sex in his life. He was reasonably attractive and generally pretty open-minded and easy-going, and that'd taken him a long way. He'd fucked a lot of people, and he'd had a lot of blowjobs, but he'd only fucked someone's mouth once before, and he was finding the second time to be every bit as phenomenally good as the first time. Rodney's throat worked around the head of his cock with every thrust, and the way he just _took_ it, John's hands on his head more for balance than direction because Rodney's mouth was wide open and he never for a second pulled away from John, didn't jerk back ever, and John had to know how far, he had to find out some boundaries, but there didn't seem to be any. Even when he shoved his cock into Rodney's open throat and then held him there, waited for and received those completely wrong, utterly fucking hot choking sounds for five seconds and then ten, Rodney made no move to pull back, though his flush was deepening and tears were streaming from his eyes and disappearing into his hairline.

It was John that pulled back, John who wouldn't take all that Rodney was obviously ready to give, or fuck, maybe Rodney just fucking trusted him _that fucking much._

"Rodney," he growled, and Rodney groaned as John thrust into his mouth with short, fast movements. "Why do you do that," John panted, hips working as pleasure roiled between his hipbones, his balls drawing up tight against the base of his cock. "Why do you move like that, like you're fighting it, like you don't love it, like you... fuck!" Because he was coming, and he wanted to, he needed, he dragged his cock back so only the head was resting on Rodney's lower lip, John's thumb still holding his mouth wide open, and pumped his cock once, twice with his other hand before coming hard into Rodney's open mouth, thick spurts of white across Rodney's tongue and down his chin, and Rodney's eyes were wide open, glazed but bright and present in a way that they hadn't been, quite, on the planet with the purple moon, and John was glad to see it.

"Rodney," he said roughly, and Rodney closed his eyes and closed his mouth and swallowed, sucking hard on John's thumb as he did. John's balls ached as they tried to clench at the feel of it, and he dropped to his knees and kissed Rodney, licking his own come from Rodney's lips and using his thumb to pull open his mouth so that Rodney moaned loudly against John's lips. He could feel the head of Rodney's cock grazing his thigh, could feel Rodney's entire body jerk as he tried to shove up against John's leg. "Tell me," he demanded against Rodney's mouth and pulled his thigh back out of Rodney's reach.

"I, please, John." Rodney's voice was hoarse, and John thought, _I fucking did that with my cock, I did that to him_ , and was less surprised this time at the way his spent cock twitched and pleasure clawed at his belly. John kissed him again, kissed him harder, and this time took advantage of the way Rodney was bound to rub a thumb lightly across one of Rodney's tender little nipples. Rodney groaned, and when John pinched, actually bucked upward so hard John had to catch him so he didn't tumble over onto his side. "I. I-- I don't know, I don't know why, it just-- it feels good, I just-- I like..."

That was good enough for John. He reached around Rodney and grasped the bracelets, which came free instantly, and brought them together again in front of Rodney, rebinding them in the front. Rodney gave him a brief uncertain look, and John nodded and said, "Go on. I want to see you do it."

Rodney's flush deepened even further, but he curled his hands awkwardly around his cock, and it was awkward, yeah, but it was also clearly something Rodney had done before. He knew how to curl them one atop the other for maximum coverage, and want circled in John's belly, which he was growing used to, but it circled even more voraciously in his head, and that was new. The psychological aspects of lust weren't anything he'd ever bothered thinking about previous to this, but it was clear he was going to have to start thinking about it, planning with it in mind. Otherwise he'd never get through these dizzying moments of Rodney with his color high and his hands bound and wrapped around his cock. He'd never be able to deal with the way Rodney threw his head back and groaned out loud at the first stroke, or the way that his mouth looked swollen and abused and he was still seeping tears from both eyes. There was no reason in the world why John should find that hot, but God, he did. He found it abso-fucking-lutely incendiary.

"C'mon, Rodney," John murmured throatily, and wished like hell he _was_ twenty again, or even thirty, half-wished he hadn't come at all so he could jerk off while watching Rodney's bound hands moving on his seeping, twitching cock. He moved in closer for no reason -- he could see everything from where he was crouched in front of Rodney -- and was immediately glad he did when Rodney groaned again when John pressed up against his side and tipped his weight deliberately so that John was supporting most of it, holding him up. His face was sheened with sweat, the chest and back of his t-shirt were damp with it, but John didn't care. He slid an arm around Rodney's waist to keep him steady, and used the other to cup Rodney's balls, rolling them carefully in his palm.

Rodney made a noise that was almost a shout and went up to his knees, his hips jerking unsteadily as he thrust his cock into both hands. John squeezed his balls a little and bit at the join of Rodney's neck and shoulder through the t-shirt, and Rodney shouted again and came, his whole body jerking and shuddering within the circle of John's arm. John held onto him when Rodney went loose and boneless, all his weight pressing against John's chest; he was still shaking, and his eyes were still closed, lashes wet and clumped together and trembling against his cheeks.

"Okay, buddy," John soothed, and brushed his lips along Rodney's jaw. "I've got you."

Rodney shuddered again, once, but his breathing was starting to slow and some of the dark flush was leaving his face. John saw that Rodney -- who clearly was used to doing this on his own -- had managed to curl one hand over the head of his cock as he came and catch most of the come. It made John wish again that there was any possibility of getting hard again in the near future. He'd have loved to fuck Rodney just like that, just slide in behind him and shove a couple of fingers in him while he was still loose and relaxed, shove his cock into Rodney's ass and find out what kind of noises he'd make when he was all blissed out, still helpless and with his hands covered in his own come.

Instead he released the bracelets. As soon as his hands were free, Rodney brought them up to his face, eyes still closed, and licked come off the inside of his right palm with slow, lazy swipes of his tongue that made it clear that this was also something he'd done before.

"Jesus," John said, and leaned in himself to lick at Rodney's left hand; Rodney moaned out his name, that same long, slow breath of sound from the planet with the purple moon, the one that only vaguely resembled John's name in any coherent sense, but clearly was John's name all the same. John kissed him, and Rodney kissed back, but it was almost lazy this time, the slow press of lips and slide of tongue, and the way that Rodney's lips again tasted like a raw, red wound.

Eventually, Rodney breathed, "Sticky," against his lips, something sounded more like a simple statement of fact than a complaint, but John roused himself off the floor and went to get a wet washcloth anyway. When he came back, Rodney was sprawled at the foot of the bed, his back resting against it. His head was tipped back onto the mattress, and one knee was cocked. His cock lay soft and innocent against his thigh, and he was smiling faintly. His hands were loose at his sides, both wrists still captured in the blue-white metal of the Ancient handcuffs, and he looked absolutely fucking gorgeous like that.

John didn't know what the hell was going on with the waystation planets, aside from the fact that it almost certainly had something to do with the Wraith, and he didn't know how the Yel-Ganta had managed to disable his entire team at once, and he wasn't crazy about sending anyone else anywhere that hadn't already been thoroughly vetted, but he couldn't quite bring himself to regret being the target of whomever it was that was plotting against them. He would, he knew. If things went spectacularly wrong, he would regret and he would drown for a while under the weight of his fury and guilt. But right at the moment, seeing Rodney's cocked knee and soft face and the strangely tender way his hands curled loosely at his sides, he couldn't help but be grateful.

He cleaned Rodney up and then had to practically man-handle him into bed while Rodney made humming little noises of protest, which John quieted with his mouth. Eventually he had them both tucked up in the narrow bed, one of Rodney's arms slung over John's hip, John's back pressed against Rodney's broad chest. When they slept together -- which was far more rarely than John would've liked -- it was always like this, with Rodney spooned up around John. It was the time when John was most aware of how much broader Rodney was than him, and he wouldn't ever tell anyone, even under the worst torture imaginable, that he liked the feel of Rodney curled around him warmly, that it felt good and peaceful and right.

"Just wait until I start nosing around for Ancient toys," Rodney slurred tiredly, nuzzling his face into the back of John's neck. "You'll be sorry when it's my turn."

"You're not likely to find a lot of sex toys just laying around waiting for you to torture me with them, McKay," John laughed softly, then wriggled over onto his other side to tangle his legs with Rodney's, mostly so he could see Rodney's face. It was relaxed and smiling, eyes only at half-mast, but crinkled a little at the corners where tears had streaked only a little while ago.

"You only say that because I've never bent my considerable will and intellect toward locating Ancient sex toys," Rodney said, sounding supremely confident in spite of the slight slur to his speech. "The Ancients were totally whacked." He yawned hugely. "I'll find them."

John fell asleep grinning.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Unsuffer Me (podfic)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/561772) by [mific](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mific/pseuds/mific)




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